Monthly Archives: December 2016

The January calendar is here, brought to you by my wonderful patrons (if you’d like to help, or even get sketches, the calendar and extras early, you can join in at patreon.com/tanaudel !).

This was a lot of fun. It is (in accordance with votes) masquerade-themed, appropriate for the turn of the year, and January (there’s also bonus mask-themed stationery for patrons at Duck level and above).

The little bat-lady excerpted above is based on one of my favourite vintage costumes. You’ll see reference to some other historical masquerade costumes and stories in it. Overall, however, I illustrated this with the W. B. Yeat’s poem “The Mask” in mind:

Like this:

Some tiny cut-paper mice I put together as printable gift tags for my Patreon supporters as thank-you gift for helping make art like this happen (the full set is for $3+ patrons, and one is available for all patrons).

Episode 5 had some lovely floral imagery, but fortunately Serial Box restrained me from getting too wild with kingfishers in mid-flight, and other embroidered details from the episode.

I still rather like the little Kaab middle left, and Micah, Tess and Kaab at the bottom right, but then I’m very fond of Micah.

But I was pretty happy with the final selection, and still have vague thoughts that it would make a nice crewel embroidery.

As with almost all the episodes, the final image was cut in one piece of black paper, with colour added digitally afterwards. With many of the covers I’ve selected parts to be coloured. In this case, however, the colour was simply added to spaces in the image: the black is all of the original cut-paper.

Episode 6 had some rather fabulous introductions, and I would like the chance to illustrate the opinionated, angular woman at the bottom right and middle one day.

But this image, with its flowing draperies and a chance to attempt an impression of transparency in black paper was the final selection (and a good thing, since she showed up first in the thumbnails for Episode 3, and there was a chance she’d have kept returning indefinitely).

Again, she was cut in one piece. Once the image was scanned and tidied, I chose areas to recolour.

Here’s a little gouache painting I did to practice deer (and use up paint!) – it’s ever-so-slightly fanart for the game “Kiss Me Deer” as played by the Bennet sisters in the book of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies).

It was also preparation for another painting I was making as a gift (that one is for slightly more limited circulation, but can be seen at the Duck level & above on my Patreon).

The art of scanning gouache is one which I have yet to study in more detail. Perhaps photography is the way to go.

Speaking of the Patreon, if you’d like to throw a dollar in the hat towards the monthly calendar, or subscribe at a higher level to get extra printable stationery and behind-the-scene peeks at upcoming projects, this is a great way to do it. You could even put it on your wishlist!